Social issues, intl affairs, politics and soccer. Aimed at those who believe that how you think is more important than what you think.

This blog's author is a freelance writer and journalist, who is fluent in French and lives in upstate NY.

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Monday, February 02, 2004

THE SOUTH: AMERICA'S QUEBEC?The lamest argument put forward against Sen. John Kerry is this: he's unelectable because he's from Massachussetts. The yapping heads (you know, the smart guys who had annointed Howard Dean as the nominee four weeks ago) have this law. The law has two parts.

The first is that northeastern Democrats can not be elected president. To them, Michael Dukakis is the be all and end all to this argument. Though one genius columnist also cited George McGovern, who hails from the northeastern hotbed of South Dakota. The theory is that northeasterners are more liberal than the rest of the country so they don't deserve the White House. Anyone with an open mind who visited my region might contest the theory that northeasterners are all raging liberals. Four years ago, we elected a Democratic county treasurer... the first time that anyone could remember a Democrat being elected to any county wide office. And even Democrats around here aren't especially liberal.

The other part of this law is that Democrats can only nominate southerners if they want to win. They note that the last Democrats to become president were southerners. This theory is based on the belief that only southern Democrats have more credibility than other Democrats in invoking God every 9.4 seconds. That Tennessee native Al Gore failed to win any southern states, including his own, doesn't seem to sway belief in this theory. Apparently, the Democratic Party, and the nation as a whole, must be held hostage by born-again Christians, people who think owning an Uzi is an inalienable right mandated by Jesus himself and those who think that failing to execute 11 year olds and the mentally handicapped is inexusably soft on crime.

I have nothing against fundamentalist, gun-totting death penalty advocates. They're Americans. But so am I. Why should the Democratic Party should abandon the little that's left of its principles to pander to them? Am I missing something? Does the vote from someone from Atlanta count more than mine? (Electoral College issues aside) Don't non-fundamenalists, anti-gun people and those who oppose state-implemented murder deserve to have their views represented? If anything, this demonstrates the inadaquecy of the so-called two party system.

The south is to the United States as Quebec is to Canada: The exception is that the south is extremely conservative and Quebec is extremely social democratic. But aside from that, they have a totally different language and culture and tried to secede from the rest of the country. They think the entire country should pander exclusively to their every desire. That a disproprotionate number of heads of government come from the region doesn't prevent them from whining all the time.

I have no particular affinity for Sen. Kerry, but I'm little tired of apologizing for the simple fact of being from the northeast.

About Me

The author is a freelance writer and journalist who lives in upstate New York. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Republic of Guinea (Conakry), West Africa, in the mid-90s. He is also fluent in French.
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L'auteur est un journaliste et écrivain qui habite le nord de l'Etat de New York. Il fut volontaire professeur de maths au sein du Corps de la Paix américain; il serva en République de Guinée (Conakry) en Afrique de l'Ouest dans les années 90.